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NORWEGIAN WOOD (THIS BIRD HAS FLOWN)

"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" is one of my all-time favorite Beatles songs.

The story behind it is that John Lennon wrote this song after one of his many many many many MANY flings he had as a Beatle. He was married to Cynthia, Julian's mum, at the time, and didn't want her to know (as if she didn't know) how much tail he was getting. So they sanitized this song, making it less scandalous than originally written.

But Lennon gives it away in the first line: "I once had a girl/or should I say, she once had me..." As a teenager, I thought he meant it in the way that a girl can have a hold on you, but I realize now that he meant it in one particular way.

The title has many interpretations. Norwegian Wood is cheap pine and, according to Paul McCartney, the phrase "Norwegian wood" was code for the kinds of groupies who had cheap wood paneling on the walls of their flats. But I've also heard that the title was a pun on the phrase "knowing she would"-- a willing groupie ready to have a Beatle ravish her at the drop of a dime.

Some people say Norwegian Wood is slang for pot, but I'm not so sure.

There's much debate about the lyrics as well. The last line ("So I lit a fire/isn't it good/Norwegian Wood") is supposed to be a reference to arson. According to McCartney's version of the story, in the song the man (Lennon) is put off by the woman, who teases him by ordering him to sleep in the bathtub. This means he won't be getting any, so in the morning, as revenge, he sets the place on fire.

I don't buy that one, for the simple fact that, in the actual lyrics, Lennon and McCartney sing:

She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh
I told her I didn't and crawled off to sleep in the bath

I always took it to mean that the woman assumed they were sleeping together, and made a not-too-funny joke about having to get up early the next day. Lennon's revenge on the girl for making such an assumption is to deny her the opportunity to sleep with him-- he'd rather doze off in the tub than indulge her. That was his revenge, as I saw it, not some lame allusion to pyromania that is totally out of the song's context.

I sometimes wonder about Paul McCartney-- he said in a recent interview that "Got To Get You Into My Life" was about pot. Oh really? Well, I listened to that song a few times over the weekend, and I defy ANYONE to find one line in that song that alludes to marijuana. Seriously-- there is NOTHING in the lyrics to that song that would give the average listener even an inkling of drug innuendo. If it truly is a song about smoking dope, then maybe Lennon/McCartney weren't the great songwriters everyone made them out to be after all.

I'd like to think that they liked fucking with people's heads. I mean, they were the fucking Beatles-- they could do whatever they wanted. They were Kings.

Lennon could've had an affair right in front of Cynthia and I doubt she would've minded. What did she expect? She was married to the biggest rock star on the planet-- did she really think that John was being faithful as thousands of screaming nymphets threw themselves at him?

Who knows who or what "Norwegian Wood" is really about? Maybe it's about a girl that John knew before he became a famous Beatle. Maybe it's a made-up scenario altogether, or the anecdote of a drinking buddy, or based on a weird, pot-influenced dream.

All I know is, that song meant something to me as a teen. It was the first love song I'd ever heard where the singer was not bragging about a sexual conquest-- in fact, the singer was bragging about NOT getting laid. And the lighting of a fire at the song's end could've been a cigarette or a joint, for all we know. I assumed it was a fireplace that he was lighting, frankly.

The sitar part and the melody sealed the deal. It was one of the first songs I ever learned to play on the guitar. To this day, the riff (whenever I hear it) sends chills down my spine.

TOMORROW: "For No One"